Chabad arrests over abuse case

It emerged last week that two senior members of France’s Lubavitch community were arrested on July 31 over a paedophilia scandal at a Chabad boys’ school in Paris.

According to French radio station RTL, André T, the director of Beth Hanna, the biggest Jewish school in France, and Rabbi A, a Lubavitch leader, are suspected of pressuring the victims’ parents not to report the attacks to police.

They were both released after questioning. The school director was indicted for “non-reporting of sexual abuse of minors under 15 years” of age.

The scandal emerged in June 2012 when boys at Beth Hanna elementary school told their families they had been molested by a supervisor and their parents complained to school officials.

French prosecutors suspect that the two men and a principal indicted in February, Rabbi Benjamin M, pressured the parents not to press charges because the scandal “would have dishonoured the community”.

One family decided to press charges anyway, leading to the supervisor’s arrest in November.